Five Star Reviews: Captivate

Van Edwards confesses at the beginning of her book that she is by nature a shy and awkward person, crippled by her social anxiety and generally unsuccessful at networking events. Like all great nerds, however, she applied rigorous empiricism to the problem of human interaction. Her organization, Science of People, does things like test handshakes for effectiveness. They use their findings (and the findings of other social and psychological experiments) as a basis for advice on how to walk into a room, find someone to talk to, introduce yourself, and have a conversation that benefits both of you. And it works.

Here’s an experiment: send me to a training session before I read Captivate, and then send me to a second training session afterward. That second time, I kept my hands visible, emphasized our shared experiences, showed my vulnerabilities, and tried to figure out what people wanted and give it to them. They all sounded like good ideas anyway, but even I was surprised how well they worked. I didn’t have to pretend to enjoy the company of the other people there – I genuinely had fun, and as far as I could tell, so did everyone else. In other words, my foray among the humans was wildly successful.

On to phase two! When you read this on Friday, I’ll be at Follycon, mingling with other spec-fic people, and hopefully, you know, not making an ass of myself. Maybe I should read that book again.